The Rig Review: First Scottish Series From Prime Video
Cast: Emily Hampshire, Iain Glen, Martin Compston, Mark Bonnar
Director: John Strickland, Alex Holmes
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Immersed in the Scottish North Sea, the crew of the Kinloch Bravo oil platform awaits the end of their shift with joy and glee and the consequent return to the mainland. The Rig opens with this premise, promptly challenged by events: a thick fog surrounds the platform and all communications with the outside world suddenly become impossible. Finding themselves isolated and at the mercy of the ocean, the whole team of operators must face the crisis as best they can, without letting themselves be carried away by the growing tension between individuals. Although all the members of the group hold fast to their rationality, the raging sea puts them in front of hard evidence: the force that has been awakened and that is threatening them is capable of endangering not only the whole of Kinloch Bravo but the rest of humanity as well.
The Rig arrives today on Prime Video, a six-episode TV series for fans of supernatural thrillers who want to end these Christmas holidays with the right number of thrills. In our review of The Rig, we will see how this new addition to the Prime Video catalog manages to engage fans of the genre and play well with its inspirations without being a bland homage to more renowned titles. Careful use of sound design and careful staging manages to further consolidate the narrative of this well-paced thriller, which unfortunately does not always focus on the characterization of its characters.
The Rig Review: The Story Plot
The plot of The Rig builds on the same archetypes of “Alien”, “The Thing” and “The Mist”: we are introduced to a group of workers on an oil rig, all waiting to drill one last hole before their leave, but who suddenly encounters a strange fog that isolates them from the outside world. Furthermore, their intervention may have also awakened something ancient and menacing, something that wants to punish humanity for disturbing natural order. The incipit, therefore, starts from this group of characters, placed in isolation in an oil platform in the North Sea, the Kinloch Bravo, cut off from all communication and without external support. The crew thus finds itself at the mercy of an ever deeper and ever-changing crisis, amidst anguish, internal struggles and ecological reflections.
A healthy dose of mystery and some creepy sci-fi happenings make The Rig‘s development captivating on paper, even if the execution doesn’t always live up to its premise. The crew of the Kinloch Bravo oil platform, suspended over the Scottish North Sea, eagerly await the end of their shift to be able to return to the mainland and embrace their loved ones. Inside the platform, the atmosphere is festive and full of anticipation, time ticking by as slowly as it seems to do when one is waiting. It is at that moment that The Rig presents the complex cast of characters who, during the duration of the six episodes, will be scratched by a mysterious fog that blocks them there.
Unable to ask for external help and be able to escape, the oil rig as in the best horror traditions (even if The Rig winks at the thriller and does not venture into horror seriality as The Terror does for example) becomes a prison and hope only a flame that keeps them suspended. The whole team must face the crisis and not only the most urgent one – to survive and look for a solution to escape -, but also the one that pushes the crew members against each other due to the strong emotional and physical stress which they are subjected to and internal hardships of the crew. Although they try to remain anchored to rationality and not fall victim to the traps of the mind, the fog that surrounds them risks endangering not only them but also the rest of humanity.
The Rig Review and Analysis
The cast of The Rig is made up mostly of young faces and some notable veterans. Not all protagonists manage to shine as they should, some are reserved for a faded characterization and others there is not have enough time to make them evolve properly. However, at least the most relevant actors and characters deserve a mention: the strict but professional representative of the company (Emily Hampshire of “Schitt’s Creek”), who wishes she were a paleontologist, the pragmatic supervisor of the platform (Iain Glen), who desperately tries to keep his exhausted and frightened employees from tearing themselves apart. Then there’s the bright-eyed rookie (Calvin Demba) waiting to go home to his wife and family, the burly second in command (Richard Pepple),
The Rig enjoys winking at the more famous titles, but the emphasis is placed on the working competence of its cast of characters; they can distinguish themselves in their respective roles, but each of them is prone to exhaustion and frustration that corrupts an already cramped setting of hers. More than the inscrutable nature of the force they encounter out there, much of the appeal of the series lies in putting these already well-worn characters into a pressure cooker that changes in intensity depending on the individual’s condition.
The first episode, focused on the presentation of the crew, is the highlight so far, as it manages to intelligently distribute the explanations of the motivations of the characters and their claims without appearing redundant: in an hour of narration there is a lot of depth reserved for characters. As episodes 2 and 3 progress, the mystery and danger increase, but the exceptional initial development of the characters gradually loses its grip and disperses in the evocative location. The slow unraveling of the central plot seems at odds with the promise of the first installment, which is propulsive and purposeful even in its quietest moments.
There has been a lot of talk about the show’s production design and visual effects – the latter in particular is very impressive. The narrative universe of the platform seems for the most part to be a real, tangible location – certainly also because some parts of it were built specifically for filming. However, story-wise, the sheer size of the platform itself and the cast mean that some of the infighting and tension don’t hold the necessary punch. The story of a base under siege works because one gets the impression that the survivors are in constant conflict with each other, but the writing would have needed a more marked division of the borders established by them to restore a sense of oppression bigger and more impactful. Overall, The Rig falls short of all expectations: it lacks a solid foundation for any emotional connection, but thanks to an engaging pace it will manage to keep many viewers involved.
To be well constructed is the dynamics of the characters who move in a non-place. A place where they lived for a short period, which was their home and workplace, and where they developed bonds – both positive and negative – with crew members. The decision to set the series on an oil rig proved to be successful. Both for tracing all those narratives that The Rig wants to bring to mindset in the middle of the icy seas, and for its potential as a place of isolation from which it is impossible to escape. This suffocating sense of abandonment slips the crew into a state of mind characterized by danger first and paranoia later. A paranoia that is amplified by an accident involving a crew member. The Rig thus abandons that veiled reference to horror and mystery cinema to embrace a yellow storyline that becomes predominant.
The thriller element emphasizes that feeling of being already seen because of a gimmick that, in contemporary seriality, is inserted practically everywhere, no matter the genre of the show. The Rig does not differ from what it presents itself: a TV series like many others, although it uses the peculiarities of the genres it uses in its favor. But beyond that, it doesn’t go very far. The acting, as well as the script and the development of the plot, are kept on a flat work that does not give many emotions. Although the showrunner tries to include many issues – pandemic and climate change among all -, the result is not the one hoped for due to a marked superficiality in staging them. Even from an aesthetic point of view, the evaluation does not stray far.
The Rig Review: The Last Words
The Rig will appeal to thriller buffs, especially those looking for some supernatural thrills. An excellent cast and a well-curated production manage to make up for some not-quite-centered narrative choices. The Rig, therefore, is an entertainment series like many others that oppress the choice of streaming platforms in a story that remains a bland sufficiency. The North Sea, to recall the cold of the Scottish coasts, is represented by a cold and crystalline photograph that does not differ much from the common image that we have of northern European countries. Even the direction has no creative flashes of any kind but follows the style of the survival genre first and thriller after in a practically scholastic way.
